


Ripples

by magikfanfic



Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-30
Updated: 2009-11-30
Packaged: 2017-10-04 00:28:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magikfanfic/pseuds/magikfanfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set some time after Rogue was stranded in the Savage Land with Magneto. There are hints of Rogue/Erik and maybe a little hint of Erik/Charles but nothing explicit and nothing set in stone either. Basically it's another character piece because I tend to overdo those.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ripples

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed be a drabble for a friend on LJ that got away from me.

She's not supposed to like him. Of all the people in the mansion, all the people in the world, all the people in the universe, she feels that she couldn't have picked a worse one if she tried because she knows what he is, what's he's done, all the trials and tribulations and mistakes. There are battle wounds on his body and his soul; he wears them with pride, though sometimes he seeks salvation for the things that he's done, the worst of the mistakes, the biggest calamities. The ones he comes to Charles for, broken down, wanting to explain, needing to explain them and be pardoned, made to receive his penance, his Hail Marys and Our Fathers.

Rogue isn't a religious person. Never has been and never will be. If there was a god, he wouldn't allow this. Or perhaps more to the point, if there was the sorta god that religion talks about that one wouldn't allow the sorta things to happen in the world that do happen every single day. She doesn't think Erik is religious, either. Especially not after what happened to him and his. You either go through that sorta thing and have faith renewed or lose it completely. And Erik didn't just face loss and adversity once. She knows what he's been through, knows the pains as well as the mistakes, how they all weigh as heavily as lead, crosses to carry on and on into the sunset forever and ever. Given everything that Erik has been though, she cannot blame him if he has given up god, too; wished him or her or it a fond farewell on whatever cosmic journey it chooses to take. There is a sad kinda longing there. As if maybe one day god will come back and ask forgiveness, realize what it has done and want to come home, be forgiven.

God isn't the one who needs to forgive in a case like this. God is the one who needs to be giving the answers. God is the one to be held accountable. Rogue knows this; Erik knows it, too, only he responds in different ways. He rages and then calms down, a tiger lulled to sleep by the hand of its master. He tears the world apart and then kneels at Charles' feet wanting another chance, wanting to prove that it wasn't what he meant to do.

Erik rages like fire; he needs Charles to calm him down.

Rogue is jealous of them sometimes without even meaning to be. Even though she shouldn't. Erik has told her things she knows Charles knows because Charles is the closest thing to god that any of them have ever met. The sun rises and sets on Charles in the eyes of so many of the X-Men, in the eyes of Erik as well, though Rogue has never seen him in quite that way herself. All this power, all this knowledge at his disposal for all these years, and yet they are no closer to finding a cure for her, finding a way for her to touch and be touched without the specter of death hanging over everything like Spanish moss on trees. Charles, like god, punishes those who do not believe fully in him, though his method is less, well, Biblical, less fire and brimstone and first born dead and more the sort of steely, disappointed stare that parents give their children, the ones that quake you to the bone and leave you always indecisive and wondering, never wanting to fall short, never wanting to see that look again because it hurts. It stings, burrows deep inside of you, hides in your heart and mind and soul to sprout back out again later, all talons and teeth. She feels it as a clamp around her heart that keeps her from leaving.

She and Erik are too alike. They have too many echoes of the same past, too many ripples in the pond where the rings touch and blend together rather than breaking against each other to fade away into nothing. Their ripples are stronger, deeper and go farther together. Their ripples could rip the world asunder if they kept going. Only they don't. They break against the rock that is Charles Xavier, they break and fade and go back to sleeping tigers in the middle of the jungle in daytime, hot and heavy and lulled to dreams in the thick dark that is warmed by the sun.

Rogue was a criminal; she did her best at the behest of others to make the world pay, make the humans pay for what evolution had done to her. She tore apart lives as easily as she can rend steel, as easily as she can cleave the air. Things that she has Carol Danvers to thank for. Carol. Her rise and fall. She's still paying the penance on that transgression, still kneeling in darkness seeking salvation, hoping that one more Hail Mary will be enough to cleanse it. Charles Xavier is a harder rock than a priest from what she's heard. She talks to Kurt, and he tells her stories of Catholic churches, the incense, the hush, the words, the forgiveness. There is sin and there is sorrow and then there is forgiveness. Always. It is the path you walk, it is the goal. Proclaim your sins and be saved.

Rogue has been proclaiming and trying to repay her debts every day since she showed up on Xavier's door, young and scared and wild still, part of her wanting to run back to Raven and just go that way, just be bad because bad has to be better than this heavy heart. Only Raven could never teach her that, never teach her to do whatever you need to and not feel it. Rogue sometimes wonders how Raven learned it; she also tries to reconcile the Raven who loved her, no matter how stern and strict she was sometimes, and the Raven that she has seen murder people. Things don't add up. Another reason not to believe in god. She cannot imagine that anyone able to know everything and do everything and see everything could stand such a mess.

Maybe that's why she's broken; maybe that's why she's lost. She is such a mess that there is nothing left for anyone to do but sit back and stare at the piles, the hurt and the loss and the anger, all of it sitting, waiting, a jigsaw puzzle made up of too many pieces and everyone walking past lacking the ambition to try and put it together. Except Erik. Who tries in his way, in his tiger way of putting a little together, not liking what he sees and then storming off to Charles so the tidal wave will break because Rogue fights every single piece.

She wants connection like burning, wants it like a fire rushing over her skin, but she can't take the step, can't let people in that far. Just a little before she runs away because they'll get too close, and she'll want too much. And then everyone around her will end up like Cody and Carol. Too many skeletons in her head already. The last thing Rogue wants is one more. Even though she's mostly herself these days, thanks to the Siege Perilous. Doesn't mean she wants to open that door wide and invite more people in. Her own thoughts are enough to keep her busy every hour of every single day as it is.

But she likes Erik. She feels a connection to him and not just because of what they went through in the Savage Land together but because they're the same, she and him. They go around breaking teacups in fits of rage and then asking for forgiveness. They want the same man to make them whole, and he keeps refusing.

And she's not supposed to like him because he's too old, and he's their sometimes enemy and everything the X-Men are not supposed to stand for, on occasion. He's too unpredictable. He's never on the same side of the road. He's fluid. Like those ripples. Charles is a rock. Rogue wants the ripples.


End file.
